7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The world is on the brink of catastrophe in a chaotic age where evil demons roam. In order to keep evil at bay, a mysterious organization from the pugilist world emerges. A new constable and a young girl with a mysterious past are also drawn into this group, embarking on an incredible adventure.
Starring: Ni Ni, Wu Bai, Yan Liu, Mingming Sun, Yiwei YangForeign | 100% |
Fantasy | 89% |
Adventure | 87% |
Action | 71% |
Martial arts | 35% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Mandarin: DTS:X
Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Mandarin: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
There are some directors who pretty much just demand surrender from the viewer. One thinks of icons like Fellini and Buńuel, where fantastic imagery simply needs to be accepted on its own terms, even when it’s patently divorced from “reality” (a decidedly relative term in either of those directors’ works, at least at times). Tsui Hark might also be lumped into this group, and while his visual acuity is one of his strengths, there’s another kind of surrender required, namely just giving into to certain narrative excesses, with storylines that are on occasion overblown and (some might argue) incomprehensible. Tsui is “only” the writer and producer of The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, a fantasy epic that shares at least some elements in common with Tsui’s last fantasy epic, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back. Once again, an almost folkloristic ambience permeates this tale of an ancient clan intent on maintaining control of a priceless relic which may lead to the Apocalypse if it falls into the wrong hands. Also as with Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, The Thousand Faces of Dunjia is long on visual spectacle, with an almost nonstop array of arresting CGI and (occasional) practical effects, with an almost equal and opposite deficit in the storytelling arena. The film is an odd one in terms of its narrative structure, darting off on a moment’s notice into what seem to be unconnected vignettes that introduce a gamut of characters. This is another film where one’s love for and/or tolerance of “shiny objects” is going to weigh perhaps more heavily than usual into whether or not the film as a whole is appreciated.
The Thousand Faces of Dunjia is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer. The IMDb lists this as having been digitally captured with Red cameras, at source resolutions of up to 6K, and with a 2K DI. This shares yet another element with other Tsui films released domestically on Blu-ray, namely that it evidently had a 3D release overseas, but has not been granted a 3D Blu-ray release in this market (a cursory search of our database suggests that no foreign 3D Blu-ray releases have come out yet, either). This is a beautifully detailed presentation that offers excellent fine detail in everything from a (yep, you guessed it, mutant) spider in the opening credits sequence to the finery of the many sumptuous costumes. Despite the prevalence of CGI, the imagery is typically rather sharp, without some of the inherent softness that tends to intrude in material that has a lot of green screen elements or other digital additions. The palette is extremely varied and offers everything from some dusty yellows in a busy marketplace to deep cobalt blues in the underground cavern. Some of the creatures are intentionally pretty goofy looking, something that adds to an overall comedic ambience, but even here the rendering of textures and details is quite impressive.
The Thousand Faces of Dunjia features an explosive DTS:X mix in the original Mandarin, one that offers fantastic placement of effects as early as some of the mastheads of the production companies. While the fight scenes offer an expected glut of surround activity, and some nice midair placement when various characters hover before they kick, even supposedly "calmer" sequences like some in a cacophonous marketplace feature a lot of rear and side channel activity. Sillier things like the mutant fish flopping around provide little jolts of LFE, and there are some more "serious" exploitations of low frequency elements in more Apocalyptic moments. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this very enjoyable track.
I'm repeatedly on record as stating that "shiny object" films typically tend to divert me enough that I'm willing to overlook narrative inconsistencies. That's certainly the case with The Thousand Faces of Dunjia. The story never really makes a whale (mutant or otherwise) of a lot of sense, but the film marauds through such a series of fantastic visions that it's kind of easy not to care about that all that much. Technical merits are strong, and with caveats noted, The Thousand Faces of Dunjia comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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